Extreme, Custom and Pimped-Out Kegerators

There’s something about a giant gadget that dispenses cold beer that inspires people to extremes. Here at Wired.com we have been busy pimping out our own fridge-turned-kegerator, Beer Robot, and we wanted to pay tribute to the most extreme, tricked-out and awesome kegerators we’ve come across. Here are some of our favorites.

The Octane 120

Who knew mixing beer and videogames was such a good idea? Apparently a lot of people did, because there are no fewer than three different companies offering combination kegerator/arcades online, and at least one home-made one is in the works. Even our own Beer Robot has Space Invaders on one side.

Dream Arcade’s Octane 120, pictured above, takes top prize in this category for many reasons, but it could be a winner based solely on the fact that it has an “in dash beer tap.” Just in case the tap directly behind you isn’t close enough, you’ve got one right next to the steering wheel. You don’t even have to take your eyes off the road to refill your beer, let alone stand up.

It has a high-output DLP projector, a 120 inch projector screen and comes with your choice of Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 or a gaming PC. Dream Arcades owner Mike Ware told Wired.com that the company is adding a removable arcade control panel and 200 classic arcade games, including Pac-man and Centipede.

The seat is adjustable, the steering wheel and shifter are leather-wrapped, the pedals have variable resistance, it can hold a full-size keg or two five-gallon kegs and, of course, there is a conveniently located drink holder directly below the dashboard tap so you can refill mid-game.

Yes please, I’ll take one of those … if it weren’t for the $6,000 price tag. I’d be more likely to own an actual car that costs this much. Not surprisingly, Dream Arcades does not sell a lot of these. “This is mainly a high-end toy for CEOs, actors and such,” Ware wrote in an e-mail to Wired.com. If you aren’t one of those, perhaps the standup arcade he plans to offer for $2,600 in time for Christmas is more your style.

This is the most beautiful kegerator we found. It is the creation of Craig Jones, who converts fridges and sells them as Craigerators. Each is a one-of-a-kind piece of “functioning art.”

“And what better kind of functioning art could there be but one that dispenses beer?” Craig asks on his website. We don’t know, Craig. We just don’t know.

Hundreds of hours go into each custom Craigerator. Craig takes classic fridges, guts, sandblasts and powder coats them, restores the nuts and bolts, replaces the insulation with foam, installs new electrical systems and adds beer dispensing equipment. His first creation was called the Bone Box and had a real human femur bone for the door handle.

This Craigerator was inspired by the “Woody” station wagons of the ’50s that are best known for their part in the ’60s surfing scene. It was converted from a 1954 GE fridge. The sides are made of oak, and the mini surfboards on top were custom made. It has a can of Mr. Zog’s Sex Wax on the door handle and a surfboard for a tap handle. It took 18 coats of paint, and even has neon lights that glow from underneath the kegerator.

Craig’s wife fell in love with this one, and it never made it out the door.

Don’t try to convince anyone that you don’t need this for your garage. It is made of steel and aluminum, has wheels welded to it and has a theoretical load capacity of 6,000 pounds. Just think of what you could keep in there! Well, a keg of course.

The main attraction of this kegerator is the (optional) flatscreen TV. It can handle screens up to 44 inches wide. Garage Fabricators says these cabinets are “built for the person who believes that their garage is not just a place “to park the car.” And who wouldn’t want a great big TV in their garage? You could sit in your car like you were at a theoretical drive-in that serves beer.

The kegerator cabinet will run you $1,679, sans TV, or $2,964 with a Sharp 32″ LCD HDTV with a DVD player. For just a few bucks more, you can get the cabinet with red, blue, green, orange or gold trim.

Paul Theiss started with an old fridge with a dead compressor that has been languishing on the back porch. Instead of junking it, he decided to replace the compressor and give it a second life as his “Killer Kegerator.”

Inspired by Craig Jones’ Craigerators, some of which are pictured in this gallery, he got help on the paint job from a buddy who owns an auto body shop and machined the inner panels and flaming splash plate from sheet aluminum.

“I installed a dual shank so I can have two flavors, no waiting,” Theiss said. Now on tap: Fat Tire Amber Ale and 1554 Enlightened Black Ale, both from New Belgium Brewery in Fort Collins, Colorado.

The project took nine months of sporadic work, including four Saturdays for the paint job, and around $600.

What? You don’t want beer following you everywhere you go? I don’t get it.

This is the first portable Craigerator, called the Juice Box, and it’s so sweet that Craig is keeping it for himself. It has four taps (though it could fit up to eight) and can hold ice for two days in 100-degree weather. Locking legs allow it to stand on its own outside the truck bed. The CO2 canisters mount on the back. It even has an LCD light show.

Craig will make you your own “kick-ass jockey box” for $2,850. He’ll even modify it to pour a nitrogen stout. We think this kegerator goes particularly well with the tailgate grill made from a classic 1946 keg, which you can add for $700.

It’s very hot in Arizona, which can drive people to do all sorts of crazy things. Or they build a kegerator. Wired.com reader Al Christensen wrote in to tell us about his home-made beer dispenser, which was inspired by a desire to have cold beer by the pool.

Only intending to turn an old chest freezer into a kegerator, Christensen soon discovered that his creation was exactly the right height to be a bar counter. He added a ceramic-tile top, faux-stucco paint to match the house, wheels, fancy skirting, lighting and a power strip (for the margarita blender of course).

“My neighbors got a real kick out of watching it come together — and emptying it,” Christensen wrote. “I thought I could make a business out of building them — no luck. I thought I could build them for caterers — no luck. I drew up some directions thinking I could sell them on eBay for $10 as a do-it-yourself project — no luck.”

Both Keystones are custom kegerators made by Craig Jones. The one on the left was made for the Keystone Light offices at Coors Brewing Company. The one on the right was made for a contest winner. Each took over 300 hours to make.

The folks at Allstarcade describe their Arkeg Drink-n-Game system as “modernly progressive, yet retroactively hip” and suggest you need it for your “game room, bachelor pad, fraternity house or even office!” This immediately gets me singing, “One of these things is not like the other…” until I remember that we actually do have a kegerator and several gaming systems in the Wired.com office. So who am I to argue with their marketing strategy?

The Arkeg can only hold a five-gallon keg, but it does come with 69 classic arcade games including Mortal Kombat, Centipede and Joust. It has a PC, 24-inch high-def LCD screen, surround sound with subwoofer, WiFi, DVD player, jukebox, karaoke and a marquee logo that can pulsate to the music. All this for a cool $4,000.

“The idea for the Arkeg came after finishing an intense battle on a worn out Street Fighter II machine and pouring a beer from our kegerator,” Brant Myers, Co-founder of Allstarcade, said in a press release in August. “The two separate objects took up so much space, yet went together so perfectly, that it just made sense to try and merge them.”

I’ve seen a few kegerators dressed up in the home team’s colors, but this is the first I’ve found that is dedicated to a band.

This is not the first tribute to KISS that owner Sam Smock has built. “I used to collect KISS memorabilia and had my upstairs bathroom decorated with KISS items,” he said in an e-mail to Wired.com. “I even had a KISS album set under clear epoxy on the toilet seat.”

“I’d seen some guys making custom kegerators,” he said, “and decided that I could do a KISS one and do it better!”

This hellish kegerator was converted by Craig Jones from a 1953 GE fridge. It has a dual tap system and can hold two half-size kegs. It took over 200 hours to create.

This Craigerator’s candy apple paint has reflective flecks in it, taps are a pitchfork and devil’s tail and the freezer door is see-through with red neon glowing from within — a play on “when hell freezes over.”

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